Aussie Fisherman Skips The Gym, Gets Jacked By Pulling In 13-Foot Tiger Shark On A Handline

Who needs the gym when mother nature will provide an even better workout? Aussie angler Brendon Hilder went toe to toe with a 13-foot (4-meter) Tiger Shark on a handline, spending two grueling hours pulling the behemoth shark to shore before releasing it back into the water unharmed.

Think about that in terms of climbing rope for two hours, only instead of climbing rope you’ve got a 13-foot Tiger Shark on the end of a 200-pound test handline, and it’s swimming as hard as it can in the opposite direction. This of course is all happening while you’re standing in the sand, and unable to gain any solid footing.

A beach goer managed to capture three videos of the epic struggle, including the one you see above:

Western Australian Yahoo! managed to catch up with Brendon Hilder, the shark fisherman in question, and talk to him about his catch of a lifetime. Here’s what he had to say:

He thought he could have bitten off more than he could chew until the assistance of a stranger helped him secure the catch on the 200 pound hand line.

“It would have taken me a hell of a lot longer,” he said.

“A 4m shark has a fair bit of pull on it.

“I was absolutely knackered.”

Mr Hilder said the catch was the highlight of his time fishing.

“I had at least 200m of line out,” he said.

“It burnt me out.

“I couldn’t even hold my handle, I was that buggered.”

After posing for photos with the catch, Mr Hilder and onlookers made sure the shark was properly released back into the water.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with handline fishing, it can take a few different forms. But as Mr. Hilder mentioned being buggered and not being able to hold his handle, presumably he was using something along the lines of these setups:

or

Just stop for one moment and try to imagine pulling a 13-foot tiger shark out of its own domain, the water where it prowls as the apex predator, and you’re dragging that shark up onto the beach using nothing more than your arms and legs. Now that’s what being an outdoorsmen is all about. That, and then letting the fish go to continue living its peaceful life, because after all these sharks do get an unfair reputation as man eaters (which they’re not).

For more on Mr. Hilder’s epic Tiger Shark catch at Shelley Beach you can head on over to Yahoo!